Peter's Useful Crap

Oh chapstick… how ChapStick managed to achieve a Xerox-like genericized trademark is a feat in itself. But that’s not what this post is about…

I’ve always had chapped lips (well, dry skin in general) but was only convinced to start using chapstick a few years ago. I’ve always used Blistex Complete Moisture (or whatever it’s called) and it certainly helps my lips out. However, it costs a good $2.99, so being the cheapskate that I am, I was curious to see if there’s a cheaper product that might work as well. After all, I find no difference between Life brand and Listerine mouthwash, or between no-name cereal and that of the Kellogg’s or Post variety. I don’t want to pay extra if the money just goes to fund advertising initiatives.

So I purchased this chapstick called Lypsyl from Mac’s just a while ago for the wonderful price of $1.79. How I went through a week with that stuff is a feat in itself. Lypsyl might have made my lips worse. It actually feels a bit rough on application. I quickly came crying back to Blistex.

Is this an isolated Lypsyl incident? Is there something cheaper than but just as good as Blistex?

Sometimes there’s a video on an online sharing site that you’d like to be able to download. By default everything has to be streamed from the site (or of course, embedded into another site but still streamed nonetheless).

Believe it or not, there are sites where you can paste the video site link and generate a download link. Then you can save the video file to your computer for presentations (remember to reference!), convenient replaying when you’re offline, and so on.

VideoDownloader is one such site, and provides instructions and even a Firefox extension. Be aware that it seems to be heavily supported by ads and some referral links (which is OK, since it’s free!). But if you’re looking for the instructions, they’re on the less visible Help tab.

So I found this ad in the local Delta paper talking about volunteers needed for local government committees (well, they call them areas). The six areas advertised are:

• Advisory Design Panel
• Boundary Bay Airport Advisory Committee
• Environment Advisory Committee
• Heritage Advisory Commission
• Parks, Recreation & Culture Commission
• Traffic and Safety Advisory Committee

This Environment Advisory Committee caught my eye, and I know there are some qualified and interested people in the community that might never have even heard about this. Here’s your chance to take action if you are passionate about such issues!

• Environment Advisory Committee, providing advice to Council on climate change and environmental considerations. (Meets monthly on the second Thursday at 7:00pm) (4 vacancies)

See the entire scan of the Delta Committee and Appointments ad for full information on all six areas. The application deadline is January 19th.

So I made this pledge on changeeverything.ca to spread awareness about different types of recycling. It seems like the site has worked on me, because now I feel like I have to come through! This post isn’t much, but it’s a start.

So, batteries. Non-rechargeable batteries from your household items can (and should) be recycled! The same goes for rechargeable batteries that have lost their power after multiple charges (such as lithium, Ni-Cd, Ni-MH) from things such as cordless phones. Just keep an ongoing collection and drop it off once in a while. Here are some drop spots or sites to find drop spots in the Vancouver / Lower Mainland area.

-IKEA, near the exits!

-Call2Recycle, where you can search the database for places to drop off rechargeable batteries. London Drugs and The Source by Circuit City are the bigger chains in the database. And who better to be your “mascot” (well, he’s not really a spokesperson) then Al Borland

- Future Shop (thanks to Dee for the tip)

- Alternative disposal locations from the City of Vancouver, where you’ll find a list that includes many other items, such as propane tanks, tires, and computer equipment. For some items you have to pay to have them recycled (a government subsidy would be nice).

- If you’re in Delta, you can drop off your batteries at all recreation and leisure centres. More details here. Thanks to Robert for the tip.

Know of any other places in the Lower Mainland that will recycle batteries? Let me know!

Previously I made a post talking about using custom Google maps for useful community-based implementations. So… who’s going to use that to map out places to recycle batteries?

The key to form security is (as I’m learning) to validate, validate, validate. If you are having users input data for processing by the server, hackers are adept at writing all sorts of code into the form fields that will… do all sorts of mean things.

Here’s a really handy way to validate simple form variables where you only want to allow certain characters. For example, for user names on a registration form you might only want to allow letters, numbers, and underscores.

ctype_alnum is a nice little function built into PHP that will check that only letters and numbers exist in a given variable. With the help of str_replace, you can allow any extra characters you want.

JavaScript (which I won’t talk about here) is also handy as it will give users pop-up warnings before a form is processed, but hackers can simply disable JavaScript in their browsers. Thus, you need a solution to validate a form field after it’s been submitted.

You would place the following PHP code into the file that processes the form variables:

// get the variable, as usual
// if you#039;re allowing apostrophes or quotation marks, you might have to use stripslashes here
$yourvariable = $_POST[#039;yourvariable#039;];

// define here what extra characters you want to allow, all separated by commas
// in this example, we are allowing dashes, underscores, and exclamation marks
$extra = array(#039;-#039;, #039;_#039;, #039;!#039;);

// if $yourvariable has characters other than letters, numbers, and those defined in $extra, don#039;t allow the form to process any further
// that 'p' character can actually be any letter or number
if(!ctype_alnum(str_replace($extra, #039;p#039;, $yourvariable))) {
die ("Sorry, you entered some invalid characters. Please remove them before submitting again.");
}